June 2020 Blues Issue Vol 36 No 6

Cities Around the U.S. Erupt in Protests
Over George Floyd's Death
Dozens of cities-imposed curfews,
but many people ignored
them, leading to stand-offs and
clashes all over the country.
Officers faced off with protesters
in Austin, Houston, Dallas.
Ft. Worth as well as major
cities across the U.S. including
New York, Chicago, Philadelphia,
LA and Minneapolis where it all
started. Armed with non-lethal
pepper bullets and tear gas,
officers did their best to try to
disperse crowds. But that didn’t
stop them from torching police
vehicles, looting stores and
setting buildings on fire in all the
major cities.
The country is experiencing the
most widespread racial turbulence
and civil unrest since the
backlash to the assassination of
Martin Luther King in 1968.
The outpouring of anger began
Tuesday May 26, 2020 after
a video showed Floyd being
arrested in Minneapolis and a
white officer continuing to kneel
on his neck even after he pleaded,
he could not breathe and fell
unconscious.
More than 75 cities have seen
protests, with streets only days
ago deserted because of coronavirus
full of demonstrators
marching shoulder to shoulder.
Some US officials have warned
of protest-connected virus outbreaks.
The Floyd case has reignited
deep-seated anger over police
killings of black Americans and
racism. It follows the high-profile
cases of Michael Brown in Ferguson,
Eric Garner in New York
and others that have driven the
Black Lives Matter movement.
For many, the outrage also
reflects years of frustration over
socio-economic inequality and
discrimination.
What the Mainstream media
fails to report, is that the majority
of the violent protesters are
being paid by unknown groups
to infiltrate the peaceful protesters
and create as much violence
and destruction as possible.
Copies of flyers and media posts
recruiting these groups have
been sent to the FBI who are
have supposedly launched investigations
into the source of these
posts. Officers across the country
have reported that pallets
of bricks have been delivered
and placed in strategic places in
where the protestors are being
bussed in.
President Trump in a call
to all the governors, advised
he was deploying over 16,000
troops from the National Guard
to deal with the unrest across
24 states and Washington, DC,
where crowds once again gathered
near the White House on
a nightly basis. Trump told the
governors in a videoconference
that they looked “weak if they
didn’t act to stop the violence.
“You have to dominate, if you
don’t dominate, you’re wasting
your time,” the president reportedly
said.
Demonstrators lit fire to buildings
in D.C, including St. John’s,
a historic church known as the
church of the presidents, and
threw stones at secret service
agents injuring over 50 agents.
D.C. police used tear gas to move
the protestors away from the
White House and St. John’s.
In Louisville, Kentucky, a man
was shot dead in a confrontation
between protesters, local police
and the National Guard. Shots
were fired at police officers and
guard troops as they moved to
disperse a crowd in a parking lot
and they “returned fire”, leaving
one man dead, according to Louisville
Metro Police.
As the Blues went to press,
over 12,400 people have been
arrested in multiple cities since
protests began, according to
the Associated Press, for crimes
including blocking highways,
looting, assaults on police and
curfew violations.
And the protests have reached
around the globe as well.
32 The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE 33